Yeah, they definitely could. It seems that McGuinty is not picking his battles very well here. A lot of vocal people are attacking the policy, but it seems that the majority think it is not a bad idea.

Still, pretty hard to get excited about a contest that for all intents and purposes is between two Liberals, and will result in no substantial change regardless of who wins.

Maybe everyone should read the analysis which is differentt than what the poster suggests.

Quote:

A new Environics poll shows that Ontario voters are divided as to whether the province should fund all religious schools if they follow provincial educational standards.

The faith-based funding plan, promised by Ontario Conservative leader John Tory, is gaining profile as a contentious issue in the campaign leading up to election day on October 10.

The new poll shows that 48 percent of Ontarians support the proposal to extend public taxpayer funding to schools of all religious denominations in Ontario if they meet provincial education standards and requirements while 44 percent oppose it. Further analysis of the poll results, however, show that more people are strongly opposed than strongly in favour: a total of 31 percent of the public is strongly opposed compared to 22 percent who are strongly in favour of extending the funding.

In polling conducted by Environics over two decades ago, in November 1986, 71 percent of Ontarians agreed that schools of all religious denominations should receive public funding if they met provincial education standards. That number fell to 57 percent agreeing with the proposal in a 1991 Environics poll and fell again to 54 percent in a 1994 poll.

The new poll also asked if the current funding of Roman Catholic schools should end and all taxpayer dollars be directed to the public school system, which is a proposal of the Green Party of Ontario but not endorsed by the three main parties. A similar division of opinion exists with regard to this idea. A total of 47 percent of Ontarians would remove the funding of Catholic schools and direct all public dollars to the public system; 45 percent oppose this.

The results of the two poll questions suggest the conflicting values and views of the public on the religious schools issue. Analyzing the results of the two questions together reveals four main segments of opinion:

One-quarter of Ontarians (27%) support the principle of funding religious education, both Catholic and other funding.

A similar number (28%) hold the opposing view – they oppose funding religious education in principle, and therefore reject Mr. Tory’s proposal and would remove Catholic funding as well.

A third group (15%) prefer the current arrangement of continuing Catholic funding but not extending it to other religions.

A fourth group (18%) of Ontarians, do not have strong views about funding of religious education but believe in the fairness principle of treating religions equally, either extending funding to other religions or removing it from the Catholic system.

The proposal to extend funding to all religious schools divides political party supporters as well. A majority of Conservative voters (60%) support Mr. Tory’s proposal but a substantial minority (36%) don’t like it. A majority of Liberal voters (55%) are opposed to extending funding to all religious schools but a significant minority (37%) support it. New Democrat voters are equally divided.

A slim majority of Catholics are favourable to extending funding to other religions, while Protestants are divided. Not surprisingly, those of “other” religious denominations (Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs) overwhelmingly favour extending funding, although the numbers of adherents of these religions is quite small in the poll. By contrast, those with no religious affiliation are significantly opposed to extending funding to all religious schools.

The poll shows the Liberals holding a slim lead over the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario voter support. A total of 39 percent of decided voters would vote Liberal and 35 percent would vote Progressive Conservative if an election were held today. This represents a drop of two points for the Liberals and four points for the Conservatives from a June 2007 Environics poll. The New Democratic Party holds 17 percent of the decided vote and other parties have increased their collective support to nine percent. Among all those eligible to vote, however, 23 percent remain undecided.

In the end, not everything is so rosy for either the Tories or the Liberals. I wish people would chuck to the side their partisan political beliefs at the door and try to be honest about the political situation in Ontario.

I predict that this will be a low turn out election due to the disinterest and the fact that there is no difference between JT Tories and DM Liberals. A low voter turn out normally benefits the party nin power. At this point in the election, it looks like DM will retain a majority. The question is how big or how small

Nice to see the whole picture. No chance for a Tory majority here and I even doubt theres a chance for a minority.

I think all signs point to a Liberal minority.

IDEALLY, I'd like to see a VERY SLIM Tory minority so that a good # of Tory policies would be passed but in a minority government, the SCHOOL POLICIES would NEVER PASS. (I just can't believe how short sighted some people have been... Try to look 20 years into the future and see what problems might arise with this policy... Similar to the Charter's abuses...)

I wonder, what happens if the issue that your highly paid advisers assured you would be a slam dunk, the issue that they tell you to hammer your opponent with everyday; what happens if you discover that you just might be on the wrong side of that issue? What happens if the issue turns out to not be a slam dunk? What if the issue resonates with surprisingly few people?

This seems like a possibility for McGuinty. Does this derail his whole campaign if the only people getting excited about this are journalists, Liberal back roomers, and the odd Atheist? What does this say about his political instincts, that he basically picks a snoozer as his central campaign issue? Does he have any ideas of his own, or is he only against whatever comes out of the Tory camp today?

I wonder, will the people of Ontario vote for a guy with ideas, ideas they may not like, but ideas none the less, or will they vote for the guy screaming about what bad ideas the other guy has? Didn't work too well for Paul Martin, but maybe that was a one off.

It was smart of Tory to bring out his faith based school idea early in the campaign. This move provides time for voters to get used to the idea and think about it. Voters have a short attention span and the initial shock of his proposal will fade. Something else is just around the corner to change the channel, IMO it will be in Tory's favor. Caledonia perhaps?

Caledonia is the issue that will derail the McGuinty campaign. There is no way he can spin his handling of the situation as anything other than complete ineptitude, covering his ass, and surrender to lawlessness. His only hope of coming out of this election with more seats than Kim Campbell is if people continue to ignore the issue.

John Tory smart? John Tory blew the election. The education platform is only going to become a bigger issue as the election nears. People in Ontario are uninformed. Many didn't even know that Catholic schools receive public funding, believe it or not.

But again, Ontarians are smart. They realize that funding religious schools goes against multiculturalism, that it will become very costly in the near future: think about it. How many Catholic children are in public schools today? Why wouldn't all parents who wish to brainwash their children with myths also put their kids in schools according to whatever faith they were born into. Can Ontario afford that? Do we want to afford it? It is just plain ridiculous.
And lets not forget that 30% of Ontarians out of over 50% are dead set against this because it goes against separation of church and state which is a fundamental staple in Western civilization.
And the War on Terror that attracted many to the Cons (including me more than I usually was) is taking a huge step backwards. I don't know too many Ontarians who want their tax dollar to go to Muslim schools so that low income family Muslims can just be around Muslims 24/7.

Caledonia is the issue that will derail the McGuinty campaign. There is no way he can spin his handling of the situation as anything other than complete ineptitude, covering his ass, and surrender to lawlessness. His only hope of coming out of this election with more seats than Kim Campbell is if people continue to ignore the issue.

Caledonia is not important because Ontarians most likely can't see Tory solving the problem any better, plus it doesn't affect the future of Ontario nearly as much as education.

Deflection won't work. Tory is dead meat. And I'm just getting going. I am on a campaign to inform Ontario. This topic is too important to me.

People in Ontario are uninformed Many didn't even know that Catholic schools receive public funding, believe it or not.

But again, Ontarians are smart. They realize that funding religious schools goes against multiculturalism, that it will become very costly in the near future:

This seems a bit inconsistent. Actually, being politically smart is all about being informed. I am also not sure how much everyone is gung-ho on multiculturalism these days. . . as you suggest. I think a good many Ontarians are beginning to question multiculturalism. The advantage of Tory's plan is that there will be an enforced Ontario curriculum in private religious schools, which is not now the case. I certainly would not worry about increased costs. The Catholic schools run much more economically and efficiently than the public schools. Currently parents have a choice to support the Catholic schools with their tax dollars or to support the public system. The important principle here is "parental choice". Even though I am not a practicing anything, I abhor the idea of "one size fits all." I think that having a Catholic board (and also additional religious schools) creates healthy competition for the public board. A public school board monopoly would be no more efficient than the current public health care system with its runaway costs, driven up by unions and a lack of competative benchmarks.

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